Gloria Mundi : Bad Latin

As Hilary and I were taking our usual walk around the block this morning the phrase that came to my mind was "Gloria Mundi." I heard it often during my church-going years, as I recall, and had a strong hunch that it referred to Jesus, describing him as the glory of the world. Wrong. Thomas à Kempis, in his 1418 work The Imitation of Christ, wrote: "O quam cito transit gloria mundi" ("How quickly the glory of the world passes away.") At that moment I was feeling the tremendous beauty of a cool spring morning before sunrise, not concerned about how soon it would pass, but rather, giddy with excitement and gratitude that it was present. A great-crested flycatcher whooped in an elm to our right. Three geese flew by, silhouetted high against the pale blue sky, and at one point I made a slight jog in my path to avoid walking directly under a fat robin sitting just overhead on a wire that crossed the road.

It's been a spring full of such moments, for me at any rate. Fresh plants returning, cool air, wonderful morning light day after day. I've long since resigned myself to the loss of a few shrubs to the starving winter rabbits (though I'm a bit disturbed that they're already nibbling on the hostas), and we've been consulting catalogs and gardening books for ideas about how to fill in gaps and liven things up.

Yesterday I had lunch with an old friend in the wide-open garage door of a restaurant called A Side Publichouse, located in a converted fire station near West Seventh in St. Paul. It was a sparking morning, marred only by the man next door who spent a good half hour out in his front yard—and sidewalk—sending elm seeds and cottonwood cotton our way with a very loud leaf-blower. To me the neighborhood seemed remote and exotic, but my friend told me that he visits it often; three of his grand-kids go to a school nearby where Latin is part of the standard curriculum.

That reminded me of a phrase I'd come across the previous afternoon while dipping into Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Poststript. Of course I couldn't remember it, but I did make the effort when I originally came across it to consult the notes and find out what it meant.

I looked it up again this morning: quidquid cognoscitur, per modum cognoscentis cognioscitur. I admit, this doesn't have quite the ring of Veni. Vidi. Vici.  It means: Whatever is known is known in the mode of the knower. To me this notion takes us halfway toward the New Age nostrum that "we make our own reality." Which isn't exactly true. (If it were, we'd all be billionaires.) But it is certainly true that the way we process experience is colored by our temperament. This may be what Heraclitus was getting at when he remarked, "A man's character is his guardian divinity."

That is not, however, the point that Kierkegaard seems to be making. He argues that the understanding of the phrase "must be so expanded as to make room for a mode of knowing in which the knower fails to know any­thing at all, or has all his knowledge reduced to an illusion. In the case of a kind of observation where it is requisite that the observer should be in a specific condition, it naturally follows that if he is not in this condition, he will observe nothing."

Does this mean that in order to fully grasp the beauty of the morning, one must already be in a blissful condition? Kierkegaard, who's addressing a slightly different (but perhaps not so different) issue may be trying to say that those who smugly take their Christianity for granted will never arrive at the condition of doubt, anxiety, and dread required to recognize how fraught with uncertainty their ultimate fate remains.   

There is something wayward and perverse about Kierkegaard's approach to things, and I have come around to the conclusion that he should be read in the same way we read Tristram Shandy. Both authors are masters of irony, the difference being that Sterne's novel concerns itself with trivialities, whereas Kierkegaard's work concerns itself with exploring the prospects for eternal salvation.

I'm not concerned about anything much at all right now, just throwing out a few scraps of ephemera before breakfast, like elm seeds carried by the wind.    

Doors Opening

We drove downtown one Saturday afternoon recently to take advantage of the Doors Open event arranged by a variety of businesses and organizations who agreed to open their doors to curious visitors under the auspices of the city. It was a cool, drizzly day, which gave the urban scene a romantic luster.

Hilary and I drive down Washington Avenue, Second Street North, or River Road often, and have been surprised by the new restaurants, coffee shops, and other businesses that have sprung up, or closed down, not to mention the proliferation of condo towers. Seeing things on foot gave the streets a new and more manageable perspective.

Our first stop was the Star-Tribune production warehouse. But there was a line outside, we were told the wait would  be an hour, and the tour forty minutes. That would pretty much shoot the afternoon. No thanks.

Our next stop was a narrow brick warehouse called the Iron Building that some young entrepreneurs were gutting and converting into condos. Our tour guide was one of the owners.

"This building used to sell iron parts for repairing horse-drawn buggies," he said. "They didn't make anything here. But a long line of bays ran this way and people would bring in their buggies. We've had our eye on the building for ten years." He showed us where the timber beams had been replaced by concrete beams, and where the basement space jutted out under the sidewalk above, so heavy iron parts could be lowered easily into the building.

"This is a historic building," he said, "so we have to abide by lots of rules. And aesthetics has nothing to do with it. If a given feature dates to before 1930, we can't change it without permission, whatever it is."

He led the small group upstairs so we could see the apartment layouts. One woman inquired about buying one and he gave her his card. "This is a small building, and we focused on maximum living space for the dollar, which means no parking and no outdoor spaces."

Gutted buildings, like Greek ruins, are always interesting; the open space for the imagination. On the other hand, I worked in a building just like this one, the Bookmen,  for twenty years. I was also reminded of the genuine loft where an artist-friend who also worked at Bookmen, Ann Penaz, lived with her husband. She hosted a  party once where a film that Hilary and I had made with friend received its world premier. You reached the loft space via a freight elevator, and as I recall, Ann and John had an enormous black-and-white photo of Joseph Beuys on the wall behind the kitchen table. All the walls were white, or course. In those days there were several galleries nearby, and the chic New French Cafe was thriving, and there was talk of calling the North Loop neighborhood "Nolo" (you know, like Soho). Ann and John knew their days as illegal tenants were numbered. And also that the neighborhood would soon be gentrified beyond recognition.

Our next stop was Dayton's. Once the premier downtown retailer, It's mostly empty now, though there was talk of a food court before the pandemic hit, are enough businesses and offices have moved in on the upper floors to support a very nice gym and a stylish "library." The young woman at the desk started to explain to us what the building had once been used for, but I politely cut her short. "We know about Dayton's," I said. "In fact, I once saw the Butterfield Blues Band in the eighth-floor auditorium."

"Who?" She looked confused.

"The Paul Butterfield Blues Band," I added a first name to clarify.

"I like blues," she said cheerfully, "but I've never heard of them."

Hilary, hoping for better luck, said, "and I saw Jefferson Airplane here."

The woman shook her head. Negative. "I have heard of Prince, though," she said.

We took the elevator up to the eighth floor to see the swanky library and sitting room, and from there we wandered out onto the open-air deck overlooking the city. The buildings to the east looked sleek, glassy, and impressive—beautiful, even—though I didn't recognize any of them. To the northeast I spotted one flank of the Norwest Tower and a piece of the Grain Exchange, I think. The Crystal Court of the IDS Tower was directly below us.

We returned to our car and puttered a few blocks to the east side of town, where we found a spot right in front of a small walk-apartment building called the Oakland on 9th. Hewed in a vaguely  Richardsonian Romanesque style, it was the first building designed by Harry Wilde Jones, whose more famous works include the Butler Building, the Lindsey Brothers Agricultural Implements Warehouse, and the original Lake Harriet Bandshell. A sign in front describes the numerous challenges associated with preserving the relic here in the midst of parking lots and skyscrapers.

We were headed for a much larger building, the Hotel Ivy, which began its civic life in 1930 as the ten-story pebbled-concrete tower of a Christian Scientist church that was never completed. Over time it served other uses and was also scheduled for demolition at one point. It now functions as a luxury hotel. The lobby is on the third floor, with a spa on the second and a restaurant on the first. We were allowed to take the elevator to the penthouse, a one bedroom, two-story suite overlooking the city that rents for $5,000/night. As our tour guide explained, "This is not a room for visiting soloists with the Minnesota Orchestra. It's a room that Oprah or Cher might occupy.

I wasn't impressed. The spaces were cramped, the style was minimalist modern, and the views were only fair to middling. We won't be staying here any time soon.

Hilary convinced me to skip the free snack buffet on the third floor, and also the tour of the whisky cathedral in the basement, and we hurried a few blocks west to Orchestra Hall. We've heard many concerts here, but the backstage tour might have been interesting. Naturally, the greeter wanted to introduce us to the building. "We've been coming here since the seventies," I said.

"Oh, so you remember the colored pipes they used to have on the exterior?"

"Sure. Like the Pompidou Center in Paris. What? Did they take them off?" We skipped the forty-minute tour and walked out to Peavey Plaza, only to discover that the pool had been drained and replaced by stone tiles. Probably a good idea.

Our final stop was City Hall. We zigzagged north on foot past the Dakota Jazz Club and the old Young Quinlan Building—soon to be a bookstore! As we passed one old-fashioned café with tall glass windows I said, "Hey. That looks like Peter's Grill." Hilary was a waitress at Peter's back in the 60s, and she assured me that, indeed, it did look like Peter's. But it wasn't.

Our tour guide at City Hall was a man named Jerry, who identified himself as the supervisor of maintenance and building security. He walked us through the building while reading off of little 3 x 5 cards, and his halting yet informative delivery was perfectly suited to the ethos of the building. He took us to the city council chambers, where decisions regarding the city are made, and it struck me that politics does take place somewhere other than in the pages of a newspaper, and that real people, elected by other real people, make decisions that affect everyone in Minneapolis.

He took us to the mayor's office, which looked like a dentist office I used to visit on Lake Street thirty years ago.

We looked across the beehives in the building's leafy inner courtyard to the windows of the county jail beyond, where, Jerry told us, as many as 700 people could be incarcerated at any one time while awaiting trial. I had no idea.

Weary and inspired and sobered, we walked south toward our car past buildings I'd never heard of. Whatever happened to Lutheran Brotherhood? And the Dahlberg Drum Shop? And where was the Handicraft Building? Glancing down one street to the east we could see the old Normandy Inn.

 "I always hated that building," Hilary said, and I had to agree.

Twenty-four Hours in Forestville

The New York Times often runs articles with titles like "36 Hours in Rotterdam," or "36 Hours in Ashville." I occasionally take a look to see if any of the photos give me a better sense of the locale in question. Maybe it would be fun to go there?

I thought maybe I'd submit such a piece myself—"Twenty-four Hours in Forestville"—especially considering Hilary and I just got back yesterday from an overnight visit.

I realize there is scant likelihood that such a piece would be accepted for publication. No one has lived in Forestville for more than a century. But the fact remains, it's a nice place to visit. There's a state park there now, and a camp ground, and even a few camper cabins. We've been going there almost every May for thirty years at least.

The town itself lies at the head of an attractive rural valley, thirty-odd miles from the Iowa border. It consists of three or four historic buildings—a barn, a stables, a general store—that have been lovingly restored and maintained by the Minnesota Historical Society. The society used to give tours hosted by talented actors dressed in historic costumes, but then they decided that was too "nostalgic" and cancelled the program. I guess it's just as well, because the "town" lies on the other side of the Root River from the parking lot, and the bridge connecting the two, which was closed to vehicles quite a while ago, is now closed to pedestrians too. There's no easy way to get there!

That's too bad. But the most appealing things about Forestville—the birds, the wildflowers, the lay of the land—are still available to anyone who comes down to visit the park.

In mid-May you can expect to see quite a few warblers migrating north through the woods and along the river. One that especially interests us in the blue-winged warbler. Why? Because it's sometimes the only place we see it. Unlike many warblers that are just passing through to their nesting grounds much farther north, The blue-winged warbler nests here. We almost invariably see it in the tall trees near the turnoff for the group camp, but this year, we spotted one right outside our camper cabin.

The blue-winged warbler has an unusual but easily recognizable two-note call. (No one would call it a song.) The first note sounds like a faint sigh, with the breath drawn in. The second note, much louder, sounds like a slobbery exhale.

We soon spotted the bird darting from tree to tree just outside our camper cabin. That was a thrill. We also listened to a catbird chattering away, even nearer to our front door. After dark a barred owl began to take up the slack with his haunting and mysterious hoots.

It was raining the next morning. And I discovered, to my chagrin, that at some time during the winter I had raided the "kitchen pack" for matches and never got around to putting them back. We had no way to light the stove and make coffee!

We enjoyed our yogurt and granola as best we could and drove down to the picnic grounds along the river to look for birds in the drizzle. The conditions were terrible: the low light turned the birds, most of them high up in the naked trees against a dull white sky, into silhouettes, and drops of rainwater on the lens of the binoculars didn't help.

The park maintenance crew had been felling diseased ash trees the previous day, and we could see the smoke rising from  one of the smoldering debris fires. It occurred to me that we could light a piece of newspaper from the ashes and use the flames to light our little camp stove, but I had a hard time imagining what it would be like to run fifty yards from the heap of ashes to the nearest picnic table with a piece of flaming newsprint in my hands.

Then one of the crew arrived to check the embers, and we walked over to ask him if he could spare us a book of matches. "I don't have any," he said. "But if they don't have some at the office, come up to the maintenance shed and we'll get some for you."

Thus began a long conversation about the park, various options for the bridge, the diseased ash trees. "In Wisconsin they don't do anything with the diseased ash," he said. "They just let them die."

We'd visited three Wisconsin parks recently, with nary a park employee in sight, and I told him a story about my reluctance to buy an annual pass at a park kiosk.

"One day, out of the blue, we were instructed to remove all those kiosks immediately," he said. "People were breaking into the boxes, not only for the cash but also for the credit card numbers. The trouble with removing the boxes is that people still arrive expecting to buy a daily sticker and can't do so. They stick around anyway, and then we have to give them a ticket."

He seemed especially proud of the park's equestrian features. "Did you know that 48 percent of the revenue generated by horse campers in the state of Minnesota comes from Forestville?"

"I had no idea," I said. "I rarely see horses around here."

"That's because you come during the week." He recommended we drive up to the horse camp to take a look. And after we stopped at the park office to get a book of matches, we did. We had lunch up there, and the coffee was so good. But more important than that, we were inspired to take hike up one of the horse trails to a ridge overlooking the river. 

This was a perfect choice, because the woods were full of wildflowers, and they were much easier to see than the birds. The individual species are lovely, of course—hepatica, may apples, false meadow rue, buttercup, nodding bellwort—but I have also come to admire the way they intermingle haphazardly on the forest floor.

We took this same hike once twenty or thirty years ago. It was a hot, sunny day, and we didn't see a single bird on the way up to the bench overlooking the valley. But as we sat there a spectacular magnolia warbler landed on a branch of the white pine a few yards in front of us. A glorious sight, and a reward for our efforts.

On this occasion we didn't need a reward. The carpet of flowers was enough. But as we sat on that bench—the view now heavily obscured by underbrush—Hilary saw some movement in a thicket nearby. A black-billed cuckoo! 

There is No Word

There is no word in the English language to describe that narrow band of time during which the newly opened leaves on the trees are a lighter green, and very small and far apart, which creates an atmosphere of diaphanous, heart-rending beauty—an effect that's compounded by the swells of the early morning air. Yesterday might have been that day, but it was gray and wet and the air never really caught fire.

Today was that day.

In another day or two, the leaves will have matured, grown bigger and darker, still lovely but never again quite so tender, atmospheric, and sweet ... until next year.

Lucky for us, we had no commitments, and we took a walk along Tornado Alley, a semi-wooded bike path following the east bank of Bassett Creek between Theodore Wirth Golf Course and the railroad tracks that head northwest out of downtown through Golden Valley, Robbinsdale, and Brooklyn Park towards Elk River, Monticello, St. Cloud, and Winnipeg.

I don't really know where those tracks go. But the morning was cool and bright; we passed women and men walking their dogs, riding their bikes. We saw three green herons high up in one tree; a broad-winged hawk flew by overhead, and we spotted a solitary sandpiper feeding in a marshy piece of land alongside the creek.  This species migrates alone—hence the name—and breeds in northern Canada. It has a huge eye-ring, which makes it easy to identify. But you don't see them very often.

But what about this heavenly haze in the trees, for which we have no word? (If you can think of one, let me know.) Robert Frost took a crack at it, without much success, I'm afraid.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

 

Wallace Stevens was perhaps considering the same issue more rigorously in this poem:

 

The Motive for Metaphor

 

You like it under the trees in autumn,

Because everything is half dead.

The wind moves like a cripple among the leaves

And repeats words without meaning.

             In the same way, you were happy in spring,

With the half colors of quarter-things,

The slightly brighter sky, the melting clouds,

The single bird, the obscure moon—

 

The obscure moon lighting an obscure world

Of things that would never be quite expressed,

Where you yourself were never quite yourself

And did not want nor have to be,

 

 Desiring the exhilarations of changes:

The motive for metaphor, shrinking from

The weight of primary noon,

The A B C of being,

 

The ruddy temper, the hammer

Of red and blue, the hard sound—

Steel against intimation—the sharp flash,

The vital, arrogant, fatal, dominant X.

This poem had an effect on me in college, though I wasn't sure whether the "you" inline one referred to the poet himself, or to someone else, whom the poet was perhaps criticizing. Maybe he was criticizing himself?

In any case, neither poem quite captures the effect. They both refer to its character in abstract terms.

And what about this attempt by Mark Strand?

           The Night Porch

To stare at nothing is to learn by heart

What all of us will be swept into, and baring oneself

To the wind is feeling the ungraspable somewhere close by.

Trees can sway or be still. Day or night can be what they wish.

What we desire, more than a season or weather, is the comfort

Of being strangers, at least to ourselves. This is the crux

Of the matter, which is why even now we seem to be waiting

For something whose appearance would be its vanishing—

The sound, say, of a few leaves falling, or just one leaf,

Or less. There is no end to what we can learn. The book out there

Tells us as much, and was never written with us in mind.

I guess Strand is heading into unknown regions here, whereas the skein of delicate green leaves is right in front of our eyes. But also, I guess, in our chest. Our heart.

 Photographs can't capture the sensation, either. But I think you know what I'm talking about.